Management 4 - Organizational Change: A Comprehensive Analysis

This report delves into the concept of organizational change, defining it as alterations in strategies, processes, structure, and culture. It explores the reasons for change, resistance from employees, and strategies for overcoming these issues, emphasizing the importance of effective change management for organizational success. The report discusses internal and external factors driving change, such as technological advancements and shifts in the business environment. It highlights the significance of communication, employee engagement, and training in managing change. The report also examines the benefits of change for both organizations and employees, while acknowledging potential drawbacks such as costs and risks. The conclusion underscores the crucial role of positive work practices and communication in leading successful organizational change, emphasizing that change management is vital for sustainable growth and development.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT
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Organizational behavior
6/24/2019

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The assignment brings about the discussion on the concept of organisational change
and the related aspects. The concept of organisational change can be defined as the change in
the strategies, processes, and procedures, structure, and culture. In addition, the paper will
describe the reasons for change, resistance, overcoming with the issues, and managing
change. Change plays a vital role in the development of policies, practices, leading to
attainment of goals. The analysis will determine the effect or impact of change on the
working and performance of organisation. Thus, the readers will gain an understanding and
significance of the change management to the success of organisation.
Organisational change management
The aspect of organisational change includes introducing change in the strategies,
processes, or culture leading to positive effect on performance. Organisational change
management (OCM) is determined as the framework designed to manage influence of the
change in practices. Therefore, the approach of change management provides collective
support to the individuals or teams in managing change (Anderson, 2016).
Organisations operate in the dynamic business environment, which requires
businesses to adapt to the change; it is constant. Change occur at both levels i.e. internal and
external levels, in the organisation. Changes or up-gradation in technology, opportunities,
social & political change, market situations are some external factors or causes of change. On
the other hand, internal causes of change consist of changes in the managerial personnel,
task-job design, or change in the organisational culture, performance gaps, mergers &
acquisitions are some of the causes of change (Marshak & Bushe, 2018).
For an example, an organisation can adopt new or better technology to improve their
work processes, thereby increasing efficiency at all the levels. This will assist managers to
introduce and adapt to the changing environment (Smollan, 2015).
During the process of implementing change, managers often face problem of
resistance to the change by employees. Employees or workers may resist to the change due
to a number of factors or reasons. These consist of lack of trust, job-insecurity, poor levels of
communication and low employee engagement in the organisation. For an instance, an
organisation with autocratic leadership or leaders may not practice open flow of
communication, and this may lead to distrust amongst employees (Georgalis et al., 2015).
Managers can effectively deal with the issue of resistance in the organisation, by modifying

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their work strategies, encouraging women empowerment and other aspects. At a broader
level, leaders must exercise positive change practices through enhancing the participation of
employees in the decision-making activities. Therefore, managing resistance to the change is
considered to be an important aspect of organisational change (Burke, 2017).
One of the vital aspects during the whole process of change is communication.
Managers and leaders must ensure that the goals or change is effectively communicated to the
employees. As this is essential to enable employees avoid ambiguity in their roles and
responsibilities. They understand the need and importance of change in the processes, or
work strategies and respond to the change in positive manner (Tidd & Bessant, 2018).
Managing change in an organisational set-up is crucial activity, and requires progressing
from current state to the desired state of performance, at least possible costs.
Key steps in the process of managing change in context to any organisation
include:
First, it is important for the managers to clearly define the change, and aligning with
the goals, set to be achieved in a given time-frame. Further determining impacts or influence
on the work practices or functioning of organisation. Third step is the development of the
communication strategy, which is important to ensure commitment to the goals (Guest,
2017).
Fourth step, in the process of change management includes providing effective
training. Training to the employees must be provided with the support from the members of
the team, to attain team efficiency. Now, after the change has been introduced or
implemented in an organisation, managers must ensure measurement of the progress or
effectiveness of change. This is considered an important step i.e. evaluation of the process of
change within the organisation (Lozano, Ceulemans & Seatter, 2015).
Employees are benefited from the perspective of implementing change in the organisation in
numerous ways. Change implies growth opportunities for both, i.e. organisation and the
individuals working in the organisation. This is due to the aspect that through change,
employees learn new things, and acquire skills. This enables them to work with higher
efficiency, and assure their professional as well as personal development in the future
(Ceulemans, Lozano & Alonso-Almeida, 2015).

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Moreover, it benefits them by providing new opportunities, and explores creative
ideas into their work. This measures and enhances their capabilities for attaining stated goals
and objectives in a longer period. Leaders gain benefit and positive response from their team
members towards the change, i.e. new work practices or environment, without hampering
their productivity.
It has been analysed that change is pivotal concept for ensuring sustainable growth
and development of an organisation. However, change is always not a good idea for every
organisation, due to number of factors or aspects. Bringing and maintaining change requires
huge costs, expenditures, and also it is a time-consuming process. Changing the work
practices or the other processes may involve the risks, and impact the overall efficiency.
Moreover, small scale organisations are unable to work through the process of change in their
organisation. Therefore, it is not suitable for the small size companies, as it involves making
other arrangements (Duffield & Whitty, 2015).
Employees may not support the change process for a longer period, and therefore, it
may lead to dissatisfaction from work. Thus, change is not an appropriate option, in every
circumstance to lead growth.
To conclude the above discussion it has been analysed that managing change is an
important aspect of organisational effectiveness. Organisational change management is an
important function of management, which requires equal effort and commitment of all the
members. The discussion in the above paper has described the meaning, and concept of
change, resistance to change, and the ways to deal with the change in an effective manner.
Moreover, the discussion has also mentioned the negative results or impact of introducing
change in the organisation. Hence, managers and leaders must practice positive work
practices, and ensure better communication to lead change in their organisations.

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References
Anderson, D. L. (2016). Organization development: The process of leading organizational
change. United States: Sage Publications.
Burke, W. W. (2017). Organization change: Theory and practice. United States: Sage
Publications.
Ceulemans, K., Lozano, R. & Alonso-Almeida, M. (2015). Sustainability reporting in higher
education: Interconnecting the reporting process and organisational change
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Duffield, S., & Whitty, S. J. (2015). Developing a systemic lessons learned knowledge model
for organisational learning through projects. International journal of project
management, 33(2), 311-324.
Georgalis, J., Samaratunge, R., Kimberley, N. & Lu, Y. (2015). Change process
characteristics and resistance to organisational change: The role of employee
perceptions of justice. Australian Journal of Management, 40(1), 89-113.
Guest, D. E. (2017). Human resource management and employee well‐being: Towards a new
analytic framework. Human Resource Management Journal, 27(1), 22-38.
Lozano, R., Ceulemans, K. & Seatter, C. S. (2015). Teaching organisational change
management for sustainability: designing and delivering a course at the University of
Leeds to better prepare future sustainability change agents. Journal of Cleaner
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Marshak, R. J. & Bushe, G. R. (2018). Planned and generative change in organization
development. OD PRACTITIONER, 50(4), 10.
Smollan, R. K. (2015). Causes of stress before, during, and after organizational change: a
qualitative study. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 301-314.
Tidd, J. & Bessant, J. R. (2018). Managing innovation: integrating technological, market
and organizational change. United States: John Wiley & Sons.